NEWS

Action Plan for Diamond Open Access

Working collectively towards an equitable, community-driven and academic-led scholarly publishing model.

Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR) present an Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (OA) to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond OA scholarly communication ecosystem.

The Action Plan proposes to align and develop common resources for the entire Diamond OA ecosystem, including journals and platforms, while respecting the cultural, multilingual, and disciplinary diversity that constitutes the strength of the sector. It focuses on four central elements: efficiency, quality standards, capacity building, and sustainability, following up on the recommendations of the ‘Open Access Diamond Journals Study’.

Marc Schiltz, President of Science Europe said: “endorsing the Diamond Action Plan is a sign of commitment to work together towards a scholarly publishing model that is equitable, community-driven, and academic-led and -owned. The Action Plan provides a set of priority actions to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond scholarly communication ecosystem.”

The Action Plan intends to create an inclusive worldwide community that has the tools to strengthen existing Diamond OA journals and platforms and increase their visibility. It has been prepared by ANR, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and Science Europe in consultation with participants of the February 2022 ‘Workshop on Diamond Open Access’ and experts of the Science Europe Working Group on Open Science. A summary was presented at the Paris Open Science European Conference 2022 during a session on the future of academic publishing.

Thierry Damerval, President and CEO of the French National Research Agency said: “The Action Plan, resulting from an international collaboration in favour of diamond open access, marks a further stage in our commitment in favour of bibliodiversity. It is fully in line with the French National Plan for Open Science, which ambitions include to support all open access publishing business models, including the diamond one.”

At the time of launch, a broad and diverse group of over 40 international organisations have already expressed their support for the Action Plan. A full overview of endorsing organisations can be found at https://scieur.org/diamond-actionplan. Organisations that also wish to support the development of the Diamond OA ecosystem and become part of its community can endorse the Action Plan at https://scieur.org/diamond-endorsement